Hold Me Closer, Necromancer - Lish McBride [96]
She reached for my wrist, only to jerk her hand back the second she touched the leather. She shook her hand like she’d been burned. “You know, I like this guy less every second.”
“You can’t get me out of here, can you?” All hope seeped out of me.
She shook her head mournfully. “I’m sorry, Sam. Those damn things are practically soaked in power de Douglas, if you get my drift. If he does much more necromancy in here, I won’t be able to walk around.”
“It’s okay, Ashley,” I said, even though we all knew the situation was far from good.
“I don’t understand,” Brid said. “I thought he wanted to train Sam up? It just doesn’t make sense that the first time Sam’s successful, he does this.”
Ashley sighed. “I’m afraid, from what Ed was telling me, it does make sense.” She began to examine the table I was on. “I think he was okay with having you around as long as you weren’t a threat.” She climbed under the table. “But once you raised Ed—” There was a muffled thump. “I don’t think you understand what you did with that.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Ed’s an upper-level entity, Sam. Most necromancers wouldn’t even try. But you did it without any training or effort.” She climbed out from under the table.
“But I was summoning you. We probably just got Ed as a bonus.”
Ashley dusted off her hands. “No, you didn’t. You should have just gotten a portal showing me. Geez, Sam, you shouldn’t have even gotten a portal. I should have just heard you calling.”
“So once I did that?”
Brid slumped in the cage. “You officially became too dangerous.”
Ashley patted my cheek. “Exactly. Look at it from his point of view.”
“I don’t ever want to do that.”
She half smiled. “I know. But in one day you went from not being able to close a circle to summoning Ed.”
“So, I finally succeed at something, and now I’m going to be killed for it.”
“Your mom must have snapped her binding,” Brid said.
“Great, even when she’s trying to help me, it almost kills me.”
Ashley stamped her foot. “Damn it, this is frustrating. Why won’t anyone let me do my freaking job?” She nibbled at a thumbnail. “There must be something,” she mumbled.
“Hey,” Brid said, “can you tell Sam how to open these bars? You know, now that he’s outside? If he can get me out, I can undo those straps.”
Ashley lit up and gave a little skip of joy. She placed her small hands on my temples. “Close your eyes.”
I obediently shut them. One of her hands moved away from my temple and there was a sudden burning on my side. I looked down toward the pain. Little girl had cut me.
“Hey, whose side are you on?” Why did everything involve my blood lately? I wasn’t a friggin’ pincushion.
“Sorry,” she said, though she didn’t sound the least bit apologetic. “This is one of those things we need blood for. Or at least, it will be faster with blood.” She reached up on her tiptoes and smeared my blood on the symbols etched into the bars on the cage. “This cage, these symbols—all done with necromancy. So to be undone, they need a necromancer. And that’s you, my friend. Now concentrate, Sam. I want you to picture the cage, the magic inside it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Okay, now what?”
“What we’re looking for is a weakness. A small flaw we can exploit. Few spells are perfect, and it will be a lot easier to deal with that than anything else.”
“I already know where the weak spot is.”
“You do?” She sounded surprised.
“I found a flaw earlier when I was studying the cage.” I could still picture it in my mind. “I just didn’t know what to do about it, or if it was even helpful.” I frowned. “At least, I think it was a flaw—”
“Don’t go doubting yourself now. It’s all we’ve got,” she said. “Now, what I want you to do is concentrate all your power on that spot. Shove everything you’ve got into it.”
“What will that do?”
“It should overload it. Like when too much electricity flips a breaker.